The Resurgence
When everything seemed lost a light appeared at the end of the tunnel in 2011 when Chris and Tim Vanderhok bought MySpace in June. It was bought for 35 million US dollars and as well as this had Justin Timberlake as a key investor. With new owners and investors MySpace was given a new hope and re-purposed as a social medium for artists where they could share and promote their musical talent. The new business model consisted a hybrid mix of subscription, manufacturer direct, advertising, infomediary and merchant enterprise structures. Users were given the option to pay for access to the enormous MySpace library periodically or purchase song downloads, tickets and artist/band merchandise. These purchases however are carefully constructed to collect consumer data, which can be sold to respective companies for profit. Once again MySpace was a business, selling and buying products and serving its consumers except it had a new face and ideology. It was a music website, it was no longer a mixture of several different social media ideas, it was purely a music website, easy to navigate, understand and interact with. MySpace had finally given their target market what they wanted and it was working in their favour. Users can access all the music they love and attract the attention of other artists and record labels all in the one place. MySpace has become “a social network for the creative community to connect their fans” (Vanderhook, T, 2012). Vanderhook wanted creative users who would use the platform to find more creators and evidently collaborate with each other to nurture a community of inventors (Vanderhook, C, 2012). At first only a select few were allowed into the site and as the development of the site grew so did its consumer base. The creators wanted complete control of their site, this time their consumers would not take over and pervert the real intention of it. The long tail marketing refers to a portion of a statistical distribution that although seemingly less than the "head" of the distribution, makes up a significant portion of the data. Whereas once it was unprofitable to cater to obscure tastes due to the costs associated with stocking slow moving tangible products, these media products are now regarded as highly relevant sources revenue. MySpace provides a poignant example of how a company can capitalise on this long tail, not just through direct sales or subscription revenues but through data mining and advertising to consumers with obscure tastes by offering information value and exclusive content. One of the smartest things the developers could have ever have done was finally take advantage of the 42 million song music catalogue they had. It is the biggest in the world and turned into a major source of revenue for the business. In short they were able to “make a s**tload of money out of not having to pay unsigned artists who’ve provided half of our content anything at all, ” (Flavorwire.com). MySpace went back to the drawing board and restructured from the ground up. A stronger and stable relationship between developers and creators lead to the rebranding and rebirth of the most iconic social media brands of all time.